A Capital Plan

This short documentary features a portrait of Ottawa in the mid-20th century, as the nascent Canadian capital grew with force but without direction. Street congestion, air pollution, and rail traffic were all the negative results of a city that had grown without being properly planned. French architect and urban designer Jacques Gréber stepped in to create a far-sighted plan for the future development of Ottawa. With tracks moved, factories relocated, and neighbourhoods redesigned as separate communities, Ottawa became the capital city of true beauty and dignity we know today.

World In A City

World in a City is a portrait of Toronto and the steps Torontonians are taking to create a society that welcomes and encourages new immigrants to flourish

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

Writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs fights to save historic New York City during the ruthless redevelopment era of urban planner Robert Moses in the 1960s.

Du béton sur nos courgettes

Snow Fighters

A close-up of a snow-bound city, and the men, money and machinery it takes to dig it out.

A Short History of the Highrise

“A Short History of the Highrise” is an interactive documentary that explores the 2,500-year global history of vertical living and issues of social equality in an increasingly urbanized world. The centerpiece of the project is four short films. The first three (“Mud,” “Concrete” and “Glass”) draw on The New York Times's extraordinary visual archives, a repository of millions of photographs that have largely been unseen in decades. Each film is intended to evoke a chapter in a storybook, with rhyming narration and photographs brought to life with intricate animation. The fourth chapter (“Home”) comprises images submitted by the public. The interactive experience incorporates the films and, like a visual accordion, allows viewers to dig deeper into the project’s themes with additional archival materials, text and microgames.

El corazón de Caracas

Caracas has been changing since the nineteenth century this is a story that tries to explain why the Venezuelan capital is complex, chaotic and fertile. In light of these new evidences, community experiments, social awareness and organization of people, seem to be the necessary ingredients to rescue a metropolis that is not yet completely lost.

Amancio Williams

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

Jaime Lerner - Uma História de Sonhos

Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square

In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."

Brasília

Chairs for Lovers

Architect Stanley King involves the local Vancouver community in urban design.

Saskatoon: Land and Growth Control

The city of Saskatoon makes strategic decisions which prevent speculation and keep land prices down.

Real Estate

Exploring the impact of the now defunct Steinberg supermarkets on the urban environment.

Some People Have to Suffer

Bridgeview, British Columbia is less than 30 kilometres from downtown Vancouver. The residents were promised a sewer system in 1953, but more than 20 years later the sewer system has yet to be built.

Co-op Housing: The Best Move We Ever Made

Canada is facing a housing crisis, and cooperative housing might be a part of the solution.

Fernand Pouillon, Une architecture habitée

In this documentary, Marie-Claire Rubinstein reveals to us, through the testimonies of the inhabitants who live there, the architectural achievements of the French urban planner Fernand Pouillon in Algiers. In particular the vast complexes of hundreds of social housing units, including the most famous Diar E Saâd (1953), Diar El Mahçoul (1954) and Climat de France (1957). The historical context, during the war of independence is related by the historian Benjamin Stora and Nadir Boumaza. This documentary also evokes the personality of Fernand Pouillon in a post-colonial context.

City Limits

Author and activist Jane Jacobs talks about the problems and virtues of North American cities.

Everything Will Be

Sundance award-winning director Julia Kwan’s documentary Everything Will Be captures the subtle nuances of a culturally diverse neighbourhood—Vancouver’s once thriving Chinatown—in the midst of transformation. The community’s oldest and newest members offer their intimate perspectives on the shifting landscape as they reflect on change, memory and legacy. Night and day, a neon sign that reads "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT" looms over Chinatown. Everything is going to be alright, indeed, but the big question is for whom?

Together We Cycle

The film Together we cycle investigates the critical events that has led to the revival of the Dutch cycling culture. For most people, cycling in the Netherlands, seems a natural phenomenon. However, until the 1970s the development of mobility in the Netherlands followed trents across the globe. The bicycle had had its day, and the future belonged to the car. The only thing that had to be done was to adapt cities to the influx of cars. Then Dutch society took a different turn. Against all odds people kept on cycling. The question why this happened in the Netherlands, has not an easy answer. There are many factors, events and circumstances that worked together, both socially and policy-wise. In Together we cycle, key players tell the story of the bumpy road which led to the current state. Where cycling is an obvious choice for most citizens.